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Monthly Archives: October 2012

To say that I was a late adapter of Fringe would be a bit of an understatement. It’s not that I wasn’t interested. Just that I was busy. I can’t quite remember with what I was busy with, but shhh, that’s irrelevant. I’ve found it now, and it’s absolutely fantastic in a way that I will never be ashamed of my love for it.

I decided to jump on the Fringe bandwagon last year at the beginning of season 4. I was told by multiple people not to do that. I had to watch it from the beginning, there was so much I didn’t know, all that good stuff. But, straightly put I didn’t have the level of commitment for that. So despite the protests of those around me I jumped in to a world where none of the characters could remember a main character that I didn’t know to begin with.

The great part of Fringe (and there’s a lot) is that in many ways no matter where you start, you’re going to be confused, so you may as well start anywhere that interests you (please, do). The cases of the Fringe Division are going to be transfixing no matter where you are in the story, and each season’s stories are more or less self-contained.

In the current season, we have fast forwarded about two decades to a world where the observers, an unknown presence in every season before this, have taken over the world. It’s insane and wonderful all at the same time. And in the last episode it just got fantastic.

If you are looking for a show that is not afraid to take risks then look no further. Fringe continues to do things story-wise that according to everything ever should not be done. They’ve made characters disappear, killed characters off and then brought them back in alternate universes, and skipped 20 years with no direct explanation of what happened in the time we missed.

Unfortunately due to low ratings this will be the final season. Regardless, from the interaction I’ve been seeing on Twitter, it has been a well-watched and well-liked season so far. Give it a look if you’re at all interested.

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This month was average. Just as predicted. I worked. I schooled. I blogged. I networked. I hung out with friends. I went to a concert and a play. I watched a lot of TV. I started drinking a lot more water. I lived. Meanwhile, it got colder, people freaked out over the election, and I seem to have lost my camera charger.

Work was very busy for me this month as I was in production nearly every week this month. Some weeks were smoother than others, but overall I’m really happy with how my show went. If you’re interested you should check it out. It’s a pretty neat exercise that I was one of the driving forces behind. I’m not on camera (yet), but I made sure there was something for the camera to shoot.

Funny how school takes second to work lately. If I wasn’t in school I wouldn’t be allowed to work where I do, but that’s neither here nor there. School is good in that I like nearly all my classes this semester. Lots of work done, and much more to do.

This month was interesting in that it was the month of networking. On of my class assignments included creating an industry contact, and for that same class I went to an outside event that, while not being straight up networking, was fascinating to me. I geek out when I get a chance to listen to educated television people talk about TV. #nerd

Even I am somewhat impressed with my television watching from this month though. I took on two new shows (Revolution and Elementary) and was also able to keep up with some favorites from last season (notably, Once Upon A Time and Fringe). There are a few shows I’m undecided about still, but for the most part I’m truly impressed with what has been available this season. Also, I watched a little bit of Mary Tyler Moore on the side and (finally) finished season 3 of Angel. Two more seasons to go, but you know, small victories.

Overall I’m really happy with the average month that managed to be October. There’s nothing wrong with a little bit of average once and a while (as long as I don’t get stuck like that).

Monday: 250 words on why I want to study/live abroad
school – outline and half of an Anthropology paper
Tuesday: blog – Morning People
school – finish and edit Anthro paper
Wednesday: Emails! Emails! Emails!
Thursday: fanfiction
Friday: work – scripts and rundowns
Saturday: school – TV Program Development project
blog – This has Been (October)
blog – This Will Be (November)
Sunday: school – German sentences

This week my main goal was to try and get all study abroad writing work done. The unspoken portion of that goal was to get all study abroad everything done. That didn’t really happen. While I did get all the writing aspects completed, I did not complete all the other paperwork that goes along with it. I am coming down to the wire, but I only have a few things left to do.

There is so much to say about this week writing-wise. To answer one question that I’m sure is burning a hold in everyone’s heart, I do occasionally dabble in fanfiction. I’m not always proud of that fact, but… actually I think that’s spawn for another post altogether, and I’ll let this lie for a little while.

In many ways this week is a bit of an off week. Looking back I’m surprised that I was not writing more for school, and perhaps a little worried that I will end the semester in a time crunch. Sounds like week-by-week writing schedule time. I also spent much of Saturday holed up in my apartment watching TV, writing and making soup. Wonderful.

Next week I want to focus on handling emails well. I recently discovered that I will write emails much more efficiently if I write an email to do list. This list includes who I need to email, and a short sentence fragment of what the email needs to say. There was even one email this week that I straight up wrote out long hand which was helpful for stopping my procrastination.

Ideally, I would write an email to send list every day, adding to it throughout the day, then sit down in the evening to send them all at the same time. I think this will also help with efficiency, and will likely also help to be sure that each project of mine is on task.

This post has somehow managed to get away from me in that it’s at least twice as long as what has become the norm for my Writing About Writing posts. I suppose I had a lot of things to talk about this week. Not sure if that’s good or bad, but I’ll leave you now so that you can make that decision for yourself.

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Last week I walked by a small group of moms and their kids while en route to the train. One of the little kids nearly bumped into my and his mother prompted him to apologize. “It’s okay.”

As I walked away past them I thought about all the times we say that half-heartedly. Our automatic response to an apology is to tell the other person that it’s okay. Their faux pas can be fixed with an short, possibly in-sincere apology. But sometimes it’s not okay. (And as a side note I feel it needs to be said that this is in no way me hating on kids, I love kids, and this idea has been pointed out to be in multiple contexts, it just happens to be a kid who brought it up most recently.)

When relationships are broken and apologies have to be made a simple “It’s okay” isn’t going to heal the hurt that has been caused. It’s not okay. But we can accept the apology and figure out where to go from there. “It’s okay” indirectly encourages the behavior to continue, and when something is truely inappropriate then it can be harmful not only to the person saying that it’s okay, but also to everyone else that the apologize-er interacts with.

I think too often today we are willing to break ties with a person because they’ve wronged us for whatever reason. In this we don’t learn from our mistakes. We never figure out how to re-build relationships and forgive. Forgiveness is where the whole journey really begins because it is through forgiveness that we can learn; through forgiveness that we can grow as people.

Next time someone apologizes to you, instead of saying “It’s okay”, I challenge you to accept their apology. The next time you apologize to someone don’t accept “It’s okay” as a response.

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The problem with the title of this post is that the season of television as we used to know it no longer exists. Starting with the writer’s strike in 2008, and evolving from there, an examination of series that have premiered since show that television series are much less likely to premiere on a set schedule.

To be fair, this has been happening since the launch of cable television in the 80’s. Networks can choose when series go on the air, and often choose based on when is convenient for the production schedule and in correlation with other shows finishing their run. Upfronts (a big party for advertisers that traditionally happens in the spring) still exist, but have been scaled back in recent years.

TV series don’t just premiere during on week in the fall anymore. Premiere season starts in late August and doesn’t end until the end of October. Even after that some shows still have late premieres and mid-seasons replacements are a grab-bag of whenever they need a replacement. TV is changing, and I’d venture to say that it’s changing for the better.

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I know better than to say that I am a morning person. Claim that I’m a morning person and I’ll likely be told by multiple people throughout the rest of the week that they saw this and they know it’s a lie. But, I know that I do my most focused work before lunchtime. Mornings and evenings (which isn’t to say I can’t do work in between, it’s just harder for me to concentrate).

Because I know this I try to schedule time to work on things in the mornings so that by lunchtime I can take a break. This way even if I get nothing done for the rest of the day at least I’ll have been a bit productive in the morning. Gotten done my small handful of things.

The problem with working in the morning — at least in college — is that no one else is ever awake to answer questions as you have them. You have to file things away so that you can call people later. This was especially problematic last week while I was trying to put together scripts at 10 am (not crazy early if I may point out) and the whole business was quite dependent on guests responding to me.

What’s a girl to do? Well, for the most part I just try to get things that require other people’s responses done in the evening time slot. That works. Sometimes.

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Monday: blog – editing Finders Keepers and On Priorities
work – emails
work – scripts and rundowns
Tuesday: school – WDP #5
school – circle of being
blog – Bars and Tone
Wednesday: work – scripts and rundowns
school – WPR
Thursday: NBN
Friday: work – scripts and rundowns
blog – morning people
Saturday: emails
school – scenes and back story
Sunday: school – article response

I am extremely happy with this week. More in how I have been able to keep track of my writing than in any specific writing itself. I used a dry erase marker to write on my kitchen window, and then I’m able to just type up what’s on the window for this post. Wonderful. Lots got done this week, but I’m not even quite halfway through production. Soon.

As a note of sorts I really love the Bars and Tone post I created, and will likely use it as a fallback when I’m super stressed. Hopefully it will not be used again in the near future, but midterms kind of crushed me this week.

This week is going to be a little calmer production-wise because we set some hard deadlines and have already met them. Score. So hopefully I will have some more time to focus on non-work things. Which is mostly school, and blogging, and study abroad applications. My goal for the week is to have all the writing intensive bits of applications done.

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I loose things all the time. Sometimes little stuff like pens and my phone for a month, but medium things too. I remember a three-quarter sleeve red sweatshirt that I adored and left at the mall. This summer I accidentally left my hat on the bus which lead to a bit of a moment while waiting for the next train. While I generally don’t loose big or expensive things, I tend to loose things that I like a lot. That I’m at least a little bit upset over never seeing again.

At least as often I find awesome things. On the street. On the El. Tucked into corners of coffee shops forgotten. Last year on my way home from church I found a kitchen mixing bowl. The next week one of mine broke and I still have that red bowl. I made muffins with it last week. This past week I found a Camelback water bottle in a Blue Line station. Washed it off and it’s good as new. And free too.

I almost hesitate to tell the internet this because a lot of times when I tell people about something I found they look at me like I’m insane and tell me something along the lines of “that’s disgusting”. Give me a little bit of credit. I always wash things before I use them for myself. Besides, if no one else is going to use it and it just would be thrown away I’m giving it new life, am I not? It’s like thrifting without the store.

There is a certain element where I see how the thing I’ve lost have been brought back to me in the form of other things. I think this is true in the more metaphorical sense too. When I work hard on something and it falls apart I choose to see it as something that someone else needed more. Something else will be coming my way that will be a better fit for me. I don’t always know what it is yet, but I’ll know it when I see it.

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This message is to inform you that I am scrambling around like a crazy person to figure out how to put together this show. Click the image for the full effect. I will be back with you tomorrow with some juicy content, and next week Wednesday I will be talking about what I’m still watching out of what I started out with this fall.

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Oh where oh where have my priorities gone? Oh where oh where could they be? When I set out at the beginning of the semester I had decided that my priorities were going to be blogging and work. This has stayed relativity the same. What I forgot to prioritize was planning for next semester.

It’s always been the plan (basically since I was a freshman) to go and study abroad the spring of my third (junior) year. Always been the plan. I was going to study abroad in the spring and then get myself an internship in England for the summer. And, you know, if anyone offered me a job while I was there I would probably wind up living there forever.

According to this timeline I should be planning and organizing this throughout this semester. Which would be fine except that it continually was pushed to the back burner as blogging and work took the top priority. It took a kick in the pants from Emma, my old roommate to get me started on this plan. Or lack of plan if you prefer. Personally I prefer lack of a plan, because I feel it more accurately describes where I’m at right now. See, the deadline for a lot of these programs was yesterday.

Whoops.

So, while things don’t seem to be falling into place quite yet I am working on it which is much better than it was this time last week. I’ll send out my nets and see what comes back. Hopefully some cool stuff, maybe some random stuff, but definitely stuff I’ll be interested in for the next semester/summer. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you once I have my life figured out internet, as you will be coming with me in some form wherever I go.